September 2026

The Anticancer Effects of Deuterium Depletion

Joseph Corsini, Ph.D. and Julie Alessandra, MTE

Consumption of deuterium-depleted water is an intervention within the supplement spectrum that has shown significant efficacy with cancer in several small clinical trials that utilized historical controls (discussed below). The work with cancer patients undergoing standard of care treatment as well as patients with other conditions has also shown that deuterium-depleted water has a high safety profile with no known side-effects, suggesting that it might be reasonable to use with any type of cancer.

What is deuterium-depleted water?

Water is made of two elements, hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is the lightest element in the universe. It contains only one electron and one proton. Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen that contains a neutron in addition to the usual proton and electron. Though it functions chemically as hydrogen, it has twice the mass and volume of a regular hydrogen. Water, with the chemical formula H2O incorporates two hydrogen atoms, but a small percentage of water molecules contain one deuterium and one regular hydrogen to form HDO rather than H2O (or D2O if both hydrogen's are replaced by deuterium). A water molecule containing one or more deuterium is sometimes also referred to as "heavy water".

The ratio of deuterated to regular water is very low, ranging from 90-200 parts per million in the waters of our planet with most drinking water ranging from 130 to 160 ppm. The concentration of deuterium in the human body is generally 3-6 ppm higher than the level of the drinking water but this varies based upon the concentration of deuterium in the diet and possibly other factors. Drinking water varies in its deuterium content due to climate, geography, and hydrological cycles, with water at higher altitudes and higher latitudes having a naturally lower deuterium concentration. Deuterium can be removed from normal water to generate what is termed deuterium-depleted water. There are several ways to remove deuterated water from regular water (called isotope fractionation), with the cheapest and most common being vacuum fractional distillation. Do-it-yourself methods are inefficient, although repeated freeze fractionation can yield reasonable depletion results for small volumes.

In cells, water molecules surround all other molecules, forming a lattice traditionally termed a hydration shell. The interaction between water and any given molecule is critical to the function of that molecule. In addition, for a number of reasons, free protons, which are formed when the electron is pulled away from a hydrogen atom, are also critical to the function of a cell. This includes protonation of proteins and synthesis of important energy shuttling molecules of the cell like NADH and ATP. Many of the chemical reactions in the cell require regular hydrogen for proper functioning, and if a deuterium atom enters into one of the chemical reactions, this can affect the reaction rate or produce a reaction product that doesn’t function properly.

Deuterium content also influences the enzyme systems that control the cell cycle and cell death (reviewed in Yaglova et al 2023), so have a bearing on the process of carcinogenesis. Zhang et al 2020 have shown that slight elevations of deuterium concentration increase cell division rate of cancer cell lines (MCF-7, HT29, A549) likely due to alteration of redox reactions in the mitochondrion (Zhang et al 2019). Conversely but also advantageously, decreases in deuterium concentration have deleterious (antiproliferative and apoptotic) effects on some cancer cells in culture but not on normal cells treated in parallel (Somlyia et al 1993; Wang et al 2013), including melanoma cells (Jandova et al 2021), nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells (Wang et al 2013), and lung carcinoma cells (Cong et al 2010). Inhibition of tumor establishment by deuterium depletion has also been observed in animal models (Somlayi et al 1999 and reviewed by Qu et al 2024). It has also been shown that changes in the ratio of deuterium and hydrogen in DNA can lead to a change in the mutation frequency (reviewed by Yaglova et al 2023).

Deuterium-depleted water has shown promise in cancer treatment as adjuvant therapy that improves outcomes of conventional treatments (Qu et al 2024; Kovacs et al 2022). Kovacs et al (2011) conducted a retrospective, double-blind trial with prostate cancer patients who were receiving various combinations of standard treatment regimens, finding a significant overall improvement of median survival time and tumor load in the deuterium depleted group. In this study, safety levels were also evaluated and found to be high. This effect has also been observed in glioblastoma patients treated with neoadjuvant or adjuvant deuterium-depleted water who overall showed an increase in median survival of 2-4 times when compared to historical controls. Some efficacy has also been observed in patients treated with deuterium-depleted water alongside standard of care treatment for pancreatic cancer (Boros et al 2021) and breast cancer (Kremples et al 2013). The intervention process used in reported clinical trials involves a gradual reduction in the deuterium concentration over the period of 1-2 months to allow normal cells in the body to adjust to the lower deuterium concentration (see the clinical trials referenced above). All of the trials reported to date have used deuterium depleted water as an adjuvant therapy, that is to say that it is administered before, during, and/or after conventional treatment.

There have been a number of recent publications reporting that their research has established links between deuterium concentration and the mitochondrion. At least three of them state that they have established that deuterium affects mitochondrial function (Jones et al 2022 in the title; Somlyai et al 2022 in the abstract; Seneff and  Kyriakopoulo 2025 in the title); however, in all three cases the authors did not do or cite any experiments with mitochondria to support the claims, so use caution when considering these articles as sources of scientific information. Another work (Dzhimak et al 2017) conducted experiments with mitochondria in the presence of deuterium depletion, measuring hydrogen peroxide generation in hepatocytes harvested from rats. They report marginal to no differences in mitochondrial function as estimated by hydrogen peroxide formation (hydrogen peroxide is a reactive oxygen species generated during electron transport). That work did not examine ATP synthesis, so we have no idea whether the marginal increases in hydrogen peroxide reflect increased ATP synthesis or increased leakage of electrons caused by deuterium depletion. Thus, we do expect deuterium to influence mitochondrial function, we just don’t have a good handle on the exact nature of that influence because mitochondrial function is difficult to study in the test tube and even more difficult to evaluate in living systems.

The effects of deuterium on living systems has been studied from many angles (reviewed by Kselikva et al 2019) and the distribution of deuterium in different types of food and in the lipids, proteins, and carbohydrates is a long-standing question that has been characterized to some extent in a conference abstract by Boros (2015). In this work, he presented a table showing the Deuterium content of a variety of foods, which ranged from 118-151 ppm. Pork fat had the lowest percentage of D2O while wheat flour and cottage cheese water had the highest. Unfortunately, this study was not controlled for geographic location, so we do not know for sure whether the unequal distribution of deuterium in the different foods was caused by unequal partitioning or simply differences in local water where the food was grown and harvested. Other work also suggests that deuterium is unequally distributed amongst different animal tissues and types of foods (Basov et al 2014), although in that work geographic location was also not controlled. Also note that the Boros et al  (2025) publication titled “The Biological Effects of Deuterium Present in Food’ cites the poorly controlled studies described above as their sole source of scientific evidence for the distribution of deuterium in various foods. Thus, at this juncture it has not been rigorously established that deuterium is differentially distributed among the main macromolecular groups (lipids, proteins, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids) in different types of food. However, we do expect unequal distribution due to differential incorporation of deuterated precursors by various enzyme systems that are active in different tissues (DeCoursey and Cherny 1997; Hirst et al 1997; Mosin and Ignatov 2014; Basov et al 2019). In the scientific literature, this is referred to as the kinetic isotope effect. With fungal systems (Saccharomyces and Claviceps), results from a variety of experiments also show that distribution of deuterium in fatty acids varies along the chain as well as in glucose and its fermentation products (reviewed in Robins et al 2003), but distribution amongst the macromolecules was not examined in these studies. Wolf et al (2013) conducted a well-controlled study with Japanese quail, showing that overall concentration of deuterium was highest in muscle tissue when compared to intestines, liver, plasma, and feathers, and Somlayi et al (2022) provide evidence that deuterium concentration is higher in egg whites than in egg yolks. Dzhimak et al (2015) have examined deuterium levels in mouse tissues in response to varying concentration of deuterium, finding that the heart and liver have higher levels than the kidneys and blood plasma. In summary, while some experimental work has been aimed at understanding the distribution of deuterium in different foods and animal tissues, we do not yet have a clear picture of which foods or which animal tissues are lower in deuterium, or whether a lower concentration in a food or tissue corresponds to a lower deuterium concentration in humans after consumption of that food.

In summary, there is accumulating evidence that deuterium depletion has positive effects on cancer outcomes. It has a very high safety profile and is commercially available to anyone for purchase. Litewater or Preventa are two companies that sell it direct to consumers. Because it simply replaces the regular water that you normally consume, it is an intervention that can easily be administered at home. It is certainly worth considering as a complementary intervention for cancer at all stages. While it has not yet been adopted by the conventional system, deuterium depletion is endorsed by the Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians. Dr. Leigh Connealy is an integrative oncologist who incorporates deuterium depleted water into her practice. While the safety profile of deuterium depleted water is high, your health care providers should always be informed of any supplements or adjunct interventions employed in your fight against cancer.